Livestock and in particular poultry are bred, and grown en-masse to meet the growing needs for their consumable products primarily in the form of meat, eggs, and the like foods. In order to allow for en-masse growth an automatic growing and feeding system has been developed for example to allow for mass production of meat, allowing poultry farmers to grow their livestock in cycles of about 45 to 60 days.
Such early systems, dating back to 1958, as for example taught by GB802421A to James MFG. Co., incorporated herein by reference as if fully set forth, depicts an automated feeding system that allows such mass growth of poultry livestock for the meat market. Such system teach a centralized feeding system that may supply feed to thousands of birds simultaneously, which greatly reduced the human intervention required in growing and raising livestock, such as poultry, allowing mass production to meet the increasing need for meat.
Since its early days the primary development in the automatic feeding system has been based on the feed dispenser or plate itself. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 3,971,340 to Allen, incorporated herein by reference as if fully set forth, describes a feed through system for controlling the amount of food made available to poultry by controlling the size of the plate opening by controlling the height of the feeding plate.
Similarly, U.S. Pat. No. 5,765,503 to van Daele, incorporated herein by reference as if fully set forth, depicts and improvements with respect to the feed dispenser to control feed rationing for the livestock.
Various improvements have been directed to the overall improvement and dimensions of the livestock housing, as for example taught by U.S. Pat. No. 6,786,178 to De Rouck, incorporated herein by reference as if fully set forth.
Poultry for example in the form of chicken or turkey are generally grown en-masse for varying markets such as the meat market, breeding market, egg market or the like utility market. In order to meet the market demand for poultry mass production is required whereby poultry is grown in large coops or poultry housing allowing the simultaneous growth of many birds. Such mass poultry production is greatly dependent on continuous livestock yield, large flock turnaround, and quick growth period in order to meet market demand while maintaining livestock welfare and bird size uniformity.
Prior art en-masse poultry and livestock feeding systems have a fixed feed dispensing points within the poultry house, where the feed is dispensed to individual plates and/or troughs by conveying the feed from a central storage place. In order to convey the feed to be dispensed from a central storage place to the feed dispensing points, a pipe conveyor system is used, comprising one or more substantially horizontally directed feed conveyor pipes, which are disposed substantially parallel to each other, and are provided with means for conveying feed through them forming a poultry production line. In general the feed distribution points are situated along the feed conveyor pipes.
Poultry are generally fed with a powder form and/or granular form of feed. The feed is distributed by an automatic feeding system to feed a flock of birds within a dedicated living area or coop, as described above. A prior art automatic poultry feeding system, as described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,786,178 is shown in FIG. 1. The automatic poultry feeding system 70 comprising a central feed supply trough 40 placed externally to the coop 60 housing a plurality the poultry flock members 10. The automatic poultry feeding system 70 further comprises feed supply infrastructure 50 including a piping distribution system able to automatically distribute animal feed on three individual production lines 50a, 50b and 50c, where each line comprises a plurality of feed dispensers 90. The feed is distributed to individual production lines 50a-c using a central feed distributor 42 and line specific distributors 44 to line 50a, 46 to line 50b, and 48 to line 50c, respectively. Line specific distributors optionally comprise a mechanism to push feed down the line such as a motor that actuates a conveyor mechanism. The feed is thereafter distributed to individual feed dispensers 90 according to the rate the livestock 10 eat at master feed dispenser 90m that is provided to sense and uniformly control the feed distribution to all slave feed dispensers 90s about the line. The rate at which the livestock eat the available feed at master feed dispenser 90m determines the frequency and availability of feed provided through the dedicated line 50a-c, therein master feed dispenser 90m controls the activation of the dedicated distributor 44, 46, 48. Usually a single master feed dispenser 90m and a plurality of slave feed dispensers 90s are provided for individual production lines 50a-c. Master feed dispenser 90m is placed at the end of the line based on the assumption that feed is consumed evenly along the line since the flock is evenly distributed around the dispensers on a line. Consumption of feed in master dispenser 90m is therefore considered to be representative of consumption along the line.
A feed dispenser 90 is disposed at each feed point. A feed dispenser comprises a tray 92 on which feed comes to rest, which feed can be pecked off tray 92 by the birds. Some feed dispensers 90 comprise feed dispersion guide 94 for guiding a part of the feed out of the horizontal feed conveyor pipe 50 and into the tray 92 of the dispenser 90 in an even manner around tray 92. Guide 94 comprise in general a suitably dimensioned, substantially vertically oriented within the feed down pipe 150, the top end of which is connected to an outlet 160 of the feed conveyor pipe 50, and the bottom end of which is situated above a central part of tray 92
The feed dispenser comprising the tray 92 and the down pipe form a modular unit that can be attached as a whole or in part to a feed conveyor pipe 50. In this way, during use, feed is conveyed into the tray, which feed is pecked out of said tray 92 by the birds 10.
Prior art feed dispensers are schematically depicted in FIG. 2A-2C. The down pipe 150 of dispenser 90 has a set volume that determines the amount of feed that may be delivered and distributed to each tray 92. Current system, such as that depicted in FIG. 1, utilize a master feed dispenser 90m, as shown in FIG. 2C, to control and determine when dispensers 90 and/or slave dispensers 90s, as shown in FIG. 2B, in a feed line 50a-c, are to be replenished, with a volume equal to a pre-set and predetermined feed volume that is equivalent to the volume of down pipe 150. FIG. 2A shows a feed dispenser 90 that comprise a tray 92 and a feed dispersion guide 94 to evenly disperse the feed about plate 92. FIG. 2B shows a slave feed dispenser 90s that comprise a tray 92, while FIG. 2C shows a master feed dispenser 90m comprising a tray 92 and level sensor 96 to determine when to activate feed delivery through infrastructure 50.
The prior art does not provide for fine control of the down pipe area 150 where the delivered feed is of a set volume for the entire production line 50a, 50b, and 50c, and sometimes for an entire poultry housing 60. Furthermore the automatic feeding systems of the prior art has a uniform feed delivery frequency within a poultry housing 60.
The primary deficiency of the prior art is that predetermined feeding volumes and delivery frequencies causes random stops in feeding as all the feed on a line may be consumed before the next feeding time. These periods where portions of the flock are not feeding result in loss of growth potential, loss of growing days, and loss of vitality. The flock may migrate to feeding lines that are not empty, causing overcrowding, fighting, and a related decrease in flock welfare and increase in the stress of the members of the flock. Where prior art comprises a level sensor 96, this is operative to activate feed delivery but does not allow control of feed frequency and volume per feed.
Additionally the feeding systems of the prior art do not include mechanisms to optimize feed delivery frequency and volume based a plurality of parameters including but not limited to livestock type and gender, environmental factors, feed data, market data, livestock psychological data, livestock behavioral data, livestock housing data, livestock eating frequency, livestock metabolic data, and any combination thereof. Further, prior art systems do not include methods to track and record flock response to changes in the feed regimen so that the feed regimen can be analyzed and improved.
Together these deficiencies result lack of flock uniformity, where some birds will be significantly larger than others, disease spread amongst weaker birds, waste of feed, and increased mortality.